Lily grinned as she walked down the halls after her talk with the art staff. She felt hopeful and proud of herself for the first time in an incredibly long amount of time. All the time she had wasted in serving someone who she loved in the hopes of receiving some love in return had been in vain but she still had time. She could still change her life even if it meant she had to do so alone.
She turned a corner and stood at her locker, hesitating as she unlocked it. She was glad that she had never decorated her locker like a crazy fan-girl. Her eye landed on the light pink envelope with the heart sticker, a letter she had always been too scared to send. She pulled it out of her locker, tucked it into a pocket of her blazer, and walked to a bin after shutting her locker. She stared at the bin and wondered hesitated in throwing it.
"Why is this so difficult to do?" Lily asked aloud. Suddenly, she felt arms wrap around her waist and a chin place itself onto her shoulders, Adrien's build was one she was used and his actions were what catalysed her crush and obsessive actions. Without her permission, her heart fluttered and her face felt warmer.
"Are you finally accepting your role as trash?" He joked. Her heart burned at his words as she turned around after pushing him slightly and stared at the honesty behind his laugh, spread across his hidden features. She forced herself to grin even though she found it difficult to do so.
"No, I was wondering when I could finally throw you in there." She stuck out her tongue and veered back to her locker. "How was practice?" She asked nonchalantly.
"It was pretty standard except everyone missed you. They all thought you were sick or dead! I had to tell everyone you were no longer coming and they were all disappointed. 'We lost our favourite cheerleader' they cried." She stared sadly into her locker before she turned to see he was rolling his eyes with two different emotions, one was playful and the other was mocking. Why does he hate me so much? She wondered.
"That's too bad." She replied without much energy as she felt a pang of pain fill her chest. Her fingers wrapped around her books with more strength than usual and her nails jabbed into the covers as she tried to regulate her emotions. "They'll just have to keep missing me." She turned and grinned at him.
He was smiling, gleefully, when he heard her. He simply was happy to be rid of her and she had realised ten years too late. His expression was faking sadness but his happiness hurt her more than she wanted it to. "So, since when were you so invested in art?" He asked.
What? She had always loved art and her friends knew about it. She recalled all of her conversations with him and realised she had never talked about herself because he simply didn't care. Suddenly, controlling her emotions was thrown out of the window and fury coloured her vision red.
"You're serious right now? How could you even ask that you? What do you- what?" Her exasperation seemed to peeve him. As he was about to speak she interrupted him. "You have no excuses this time." She looked at him, down and up, before spitting "if you have any decency left, don't show yourself in front of me until you know something about me other than my name. So, I guess you'll never show up." He felt her anger and she saw confusion written over his features. She shook her head and walked away from him, to her class. A smile lit up his face as he watched her back, small and distant, a sense of freedom filled his soul from his soles to the tip of his eyelash. She was gone.
He didn't care enough to wonder why there was a sudden change in her behaviour and his lack of care would eventually become one of his greatest regrets. Instead, his gratefulness for her departure created an unfathomable gap between them appeared whilst her obsession disappeared. Her heart tore as she felt him create a larger distance and she bore the pain with a grin on her face.
Once her lesson was over, she did what she had always done, not realising that her reality had changed, and stood at her locker, waiting ten extra seconds because he would appear. She turned to her left and caught sight of him leaving his class and for a second, she forgot his disdain and almost called his name, it was on the tip of her tongue and she let it float away. She turned back into her locker, grabbed her laptop, and walked away from him. They usually didn't have this lesson and she would hang out with him and his friends, today she turned away. Her lack of presence was noted by his friends but none commented on it, instead, they all opted for his attitude and decided to stop interacting with her. In a single day, she lost all the people she thought to be her friends and her eyes were opened to the reality she was unaware of. She was alone.
As she sat on the grass, she began to laugh mockingly at herself and her thoughts ran wild. "You darn idiot, why would they be your friends? Why would anyone be your friend? How could you be stupid enough to expect love?" She began crying, her heart slowly breaking into smaller fragments as abandonment and darkness swallowed her whole.
Perhaps, she thought, this was always meant to happen. Perhaps I was meant to lose everyone because I am not worthy of love. Perhaps, a laugh echoed through her body, he has never loved me. The sky, covered in grey clouds, became warped from her glazed view and she felt a need to express her feelings. She ran to the art room she had been granted and pulled out a canvas; she didn't care about drafting, she never had; she began to throw colours and strokes onto the white, dirtying it with her emotions. After she was done, she stared at the masterpiece, her pain hidden in the aggression of the strokes, her hatred carved into the canvas like a brand on a slave.